Well its been a few months now and the Ventracs been awesome! The 31 is very capable even cutting 8" tall grass down to 3" it rips right thru it...although it will suck fuel when cutting like that for hours...i had a problem with it running out of fuel when working hard over 3000rpm...it seemed to be fine when tank is full.. after about am hour of use it started...it would bog and die...letting it sit for 10 secs with key on refilled float bowl and it'd fire right back up...I replaced the filter with no change after checking the fuel line for kinks...and eventually put a napa universal 12v 3psi pump on it ..problem solved.
4231 Engine
- Thread starter Raw Dodge
- Start date
Sorry, it never actually ran out of fuel in the tank, just at the carburetor...I called my dealer and they told me a weak pump is a common issue on all L/C 4200s...and. that the universal Napa pump works great and they use them when there out of OEM pumps..I removed the stock pump and put the Napa in its place..
I don't know how big of a deal it is... the pump got weak,it happens.. It certainly didn't stop me from mowing or using the machine... Initially I thought it was a filter or a tank venting issue... It forces you to be easy on it.... It gave you a warning it would start to miss and blubber. When you heard that you had to drop to idle and a quick shot of the choke.. And you would save having to restart it.
As long as you have it open, I would check everything I could think of and replace anything questionable. You sound like someone who will take care of it in the future, so it may be worth a little extra $$$ now and not worry if you should have done something more. One thing I would definitely do is blow out all the cooling passages in the block with both water and air. Bet you will find corrosion coming out. If it was run with water only, plugged passages are a definite possibilities.
Rivits the engines been together for about 2 months now,when i had it apart,I hung the engine upside down outside overngiht to drain it,then took it outside with the FEL on the tractor,hung it from the front end loader,and hot water powerwashed the blocks coolant passages,popped the freeze plugs and rodded out all the steam holes on the deck.i found one passage plugged otherwise there was just a lot of rusty sediment and some light surface rust,which i wire brushed from the access i got by having out the freeze plugs.After reassembly,once i had it running i ran it on straight water for an hour,used it at operating temp and rpm,flushed it(it was suprisingly clean,filled with water again,and ran that 45 minutes,flushed it,and added antifreeze/water to -34 degrees....its been absolutely fine.
I was at my dealer on friday,and asked about the pump issue..his answer was that since our fuel had 10% ethanol added to it a few years ago when MTBE was banned,the fuel pump problems started shortly after...He said the older machines that had a lot of hours on them seemed to make the transistion fine,as they had some wear already,however the newer machines experienced alot of pump failures.He said this isnt a Ventrac only problem,and the pump on the Ventrac is of good quality,the fuels today are just destroying pumps,lines,and carburators especially when you let the machines sit...I guess this is why the gasoline powered machines have higher failure rates,at least the pumps are under 50 bucks and not to bad to change.